On May 25 to 29, 2009, Prof. Charles Stevens from the Salk Institute, recipient of the Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited ION.

During his visit, Prof. Stevens visited every ION laboratory and talked with faculty members, as well as some post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D. students. He gave many thoughtful suggestions and comments on various research projects. On May 28 and 29, he gave two talks entitled "The basic uniformity in structure of the neocortex, revisited" and "What the primary visual cortex computes, and how it does it".

The Albert Einstein Visiting Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is designed to enhance the development of its leading scientists, raise the innovation abilities of its staff and strengthen their contacts and exchanges with scientific elites around the world.

The program aims to invite 20 world-class scientists each year to visit CAS for up to two weeks. Those eligible for the program include laureates or potential laureates of the Noble Prize for Natural Sciences and winners of similar honors, such as the Fields Medal in Mathematics, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, The Turing Award in Computer Science and the Tyler Prize in Environmental Science, and those who have made special contributions to a particular field.